Pure White Cats Deaf

Deafness in White Cats.

Pure white cats deaf. The uphill road to solving polygenic disorders The pure white cat with luminous blue eyes is an attrac-tive image familiar to many. Contrary to popular belief white cats are no more likely than any other coat color to be deaf. When cats with the W gene are bred the resulting litters have the chance to inherit faulty hearing.

A failure to respond when spoken to or called. Not all but some solid white cat breeds have a genetic mutation which causes deafness in both ears. They are deaf even if they have a blue eye.

Deafness in white cats typically is a genetic condition resulting from the dominant white gene commonly referred to as the W gene. Charles Darwin discovered that cats with blue eyes who were also pure white in color were most often deaf shortly after being born. For this reason a cat with odd eyes can be deaf from the ear that is on the side of the blue eye.

Google presents me with contradictory answers to this question. 31 of white cats and blue eyes had normal hearing. Not pure white and congenital deafness is extremely rare in non-white cats.

However that is not guaranteed. 25 of white cats with yellow eyes have normal hearing. But not all white cats are deaf.

15-40 of these pure white cats have one or two blue-eyes. White Kitten with Blue Eyes DeafnessBlindness White kitten with blue eyes are often be associated with blindness and deafness. If the cat has even a single spot on it it is not considered pure white.